Six Months

I went to court yesterday with an application in respect of my divorce. You might wonder what this has to do with ALS; I will get there, trust me. First, some background. I am in the midst of a divorce. It is taking a long time to complete. My ex-wife believes sincerely that her contribution to our marriage and assets is worth more than my contribution. She sincerely believes that her contribution to raising our children and supporting our family is of more value than mine. She sincerely believes that she is fighting to protect her home, the home she loves and wants to live in for the rest of her life.

She will say anything, use any weapon to win this battle. She has engaged our children in her court battle, drawn people who once claimed to be my friends into the battle. She has had her lawyer deny my ALS in open court and deny that I had a heart attack in open court. She's put it in writing too. She has over-represented her contribution and under-represented mine. Her approach is killing me, accelerating my decline and causing me untold pain. It is working.

In taking this approach my ex-wife has made a series of financial settlement offers representing substantially less than half our assets. In fact these offers are somewhere in the 25 - 30% of assets range. Actually the best one so far has not quite made the 30% mark. So I made application to the courts to have our family home sold. My hope was that, once an order was in place, my ex-wife would forced into a place where she was compelled to make a more reasonable financial offer.

My application was denied; she will not be forced to sell the house at this time nor will any better offer be forthcoming in the near future. The judge ruled that we must go to full divorce court for a "global" settlement. My ex-wife feels that she won and that she will win again in divorce court. In fact she is celebrating in that family home tonight, the one where she lives rent free, healthy and fully able to live a complete life while I, with ALS and a short time to live,  must rent a home and pay for care. Unfortunately it will take another six months to get this to court. That is another six month delay, a delay that has a substantially greater impact on me than it does on her.

It is important to understand the impact of a six month delay. The next six months are likely to be the last six months of my life where travel is a viable reality. After that my decline will be precipitous enough that travel of any sort will become increasingly difficult and unlikely. I wanted to get this done so I could use that money to enjoy the good part of my life, not the bad part that will come after that. A late settlement for me is as bad as no settlement at all. In short she is using my ALS as a way to defeat me financially.

It is likely that I will get a reasonable portion of our family assets in the end; unfortunately I will be in sufficiently poor shape as to make it irrelevant. It is possible that the house will have to be sold, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory, for both of us. She gains a delay in the inevitable yet when the inevitable comes I will be sufficiently disabled as to no longer enjoy my gains.

The next six months will be my last good six months. I regret that I will live them with substantial limitations, both financial and physical.